Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Bookshop, San Francisco, March 1996

Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Cowes

- June 1945

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was at the epicentre of the beat poets who inspired Bob Dylan and a long line of sixties troubadours. He also championed the writings of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg from his City Lights Bookshop in San Francisco.

Born in Yonkers, New York in 1919, the poet is featured performing a take on the sermon from the mount in The Band's Last Waltz film. Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Waco poem to the late religious fanatic David Koresh shows that his vision remains as sharp as ever.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti made one, brief, visit to the Isle of Wight:

"I was skipper of a U.S. subchaser (somewhat smaller than a British frigate) in the Normandy Invasion. We were battered by the storm that hit the beaches after the landings began, and limped back to England, partly under sail. (The high point of my career was sending a message to the Admiralty at the height of the storm: 'Both engines out. Proceeding under sail.')

We finally got one engine working and made it into Southampton. (Some of the sailors jumped off and kissed the earth when we got to the docks, having believed we were goners.) We were sent to a shipyard in Cowes and laid up for three weeks, most of which I spent in London." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and owner of City Lights Bookshop, San Francisco

Interviewed by Mike Plumbley, City Lights Bookshop, January 13th, 1994

Recommended reading: A Coney Island of the Mind, Pictures From The Gone World, These Are My Rivers. Essential listening: Moscow in the wilderness, Segovia in the snow from Howls, Raps and Roars, 4 CD set of the Beat Poets on Fantasy Records.